G-20 leaders blacklist 4 tax havens

PARIS: The OECD has placed Costa Rica, Malaysia, the Philippines and Uruguay on its blacklist of non-cooperative tax havens, as part of efforts agreed at the Group of 20 summit to crack down on tax evasion.

A copy of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's list was obtained by Reuters.

A separate "grey list" of countries that have agreed to improve transparency standards but have not yet signed the necessary international accords included Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Singapore and Chile as well as the Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein and Monaco.

China is on a third "white list" of jurisdictions that have substantially implemented the internationally agreed tax standards. But the OECD said China's two Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao had so far only "committed to implement" the internationally agreed tax standard."

Earlier, the Group of 20 leading industrialised and emerging nations pledged to take action including sanctions against non-cooperative jurisdictions, including tax havens, using information from the OECD as its basis.

The non-cooperative centres are accused of harbouring foreign tax avoiders who park billions of dollars out of reach of their home authorities.